# Boxes or Sandboxes?

> Which to start with: a box is a cloud machine you work on every day; a sandbox is a microVM your code creates and throws away.

URL: https://prized.dev/docs/sandboxes-or-boxes

You want a **box** if you want a cloud machine to work on: your repo synced with your laptop, dev servers on your localhost, and coding agents that keep running with the laptop closed.

You want a **sandbox** if your code needs clean machines to run something in and throw away, often many at once.

## Side by side [#side-by-side]

|                   | Box                                                                                      | Sandbox (beta)                                                                         |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Driven by         | You, from your laptop through the `prized` CLI                                           | Your code, through the [API](https://prized.dev/docs/sandboxes-api) or `prized sandbox`                  |
| Lives             | Until you delete it                                                                      | Until your code deletes it, or 24 hours at most                                        |
| Starts            | Usually under a minute                                                                   | Usually about five seconds                                                             |
| Billed            | Monthly plan: hourly at its size's rate while awake, disk only while asleep              | Per second, for the vCPU, memory, and disk it holds; paused, storage only              |
| Sync and ports    | Two-way folder sync, ports on your localhost, sessions that outlive a dropped connection | None: commands and file copies through the API or `prized sandbox`                     |
| Fork              | `prized fork` copies its disk into a new box, in minutes                                 | Into live copies, each with every process still running                                |
| Sizes and regions | Nano to Extra Large, in 5 regions                                                        | 1 to 8 vCPU and up to 16 GB, in `us-west-2` (Oregon)                                   |
| Best for          | Your daily dev machine, and agents that run for days                                     | Code you have not read, a clean machine per test run, one job fanned out across copies |

## Using both [#using-both]

Boxes and sandboxes share one workspace: one account, one balance, one dashboard, the same API keys.

* **One balance.** Box hours and sandbox seconds draw on the same credit ([Billing](https://prized.dev/docs/billing#sandboxes)).
* **$30 of free credit, no card.** New workspaces get it once, for either: one box, Nano to Small, and sandboxes within the [free tier](https://prized.dev/docs/sandboxes#free-tier) (4 at once, each up to 2 vCPU, 4 GB, and 60 minutes).
* **Paying in lifts the limits.** A plan lifts the box rules; a plan or a [top-up](https://prized.dev/docs/billing#topping-up) gives sandboxes the full quotas.

## Start here [#start-here]

* **A box:** the [Quickstart](https://prized.dev/docs/quickstart), four steps from sign-up to your project on a box.
* **Sandboxes:** the [Sandboxes quickstart](https://prized.dev/docs/sandboxes#quickstart), whose **Open Sandboxes** link signs you up with no box tour.